quarta-feira, 10 de fevereiro de 2010

Chomsky: Dedo Americano na Reação ao PNDH-3?

Leosfera:

Dear Professor Chomsky,

I realize american media do not care much about Brazilian internal affairs, so I thought I might share with you a few happenings which might be of your interest and eventually have your opinion on them.

Last december, the government released a Natonal Plan for Human Rights, a propositive document that reflects global liberal concerns, domestic issues, and called for a Commission of Thuth, to investigate and eventually punish torturers from the 64-85 regime.

There was a huge right-wing backlash, not only from the military - which was obvious - but also from several conservative sectors that opposed vehemently other topics that ironically were already present in earlier editions of the Plan, issued under former president Cardoso. So agribusiness opposed judicial hearings before landless workers evictions, the Church opposed gay weddings and adoptions, abortions and banishment of religious symbols from governmental spaces, and the media is a chapter by itself.

Not only they attacked the idea of monitoring the outlets' respect for human rights, with eventual sanctions, but they made an effort to, not always very discreetly, accuse the government of establishing communism by decree. One "journalist" went so far as asking "where are the military?" The public, apart from informed and engaged Lula supporters, bought the conspicuous lies, so we had to hear statements better suited to the cold war.

It's surprising how low is the conscience of the terror regime among us. It is a taboo of our society, that prefers to pretend it never happened (unlike Chile or Argentina). Many are now defamating left-wing militants (Lula's candidate, Dilma Rousseff, was one of them), and Lula's reaction, changing the document, apparently leaves space to investigate them as well.

I realize there's a world-wide extreme-right tendency, but here I see it much more as a strategy to regain power. Now the latest polls show the two candidates, Serra (right-wing PSDB) and Dilma (center-left Workers Party-PT), virtually tied, the tendency is that virulence should grow (and issues disappear). It's the last resort for PSDB, as PT will focus on comparing Cardoso's tatcherism with Lula's social-democracy.

My question is, your point is that media "manufacture consent" in the US, a one-party sate, here they did manufacture consent during the dictatorship, as they did in neoliberal years, now they try to manufcture a coup (in Venezuela much more than here). Any attentive viewer will realize that mainstream media represent US interest here, not only defending right-wing views (which is explained by shared interests) but in the coverage of US wars or the Israel-Palestine issue. Do you think there could be direct US intervention or is it a corporatist behaviour? After all, Rede Globo, the biggest media conglomerate has a 30% Time-Life participation.

Thanks so much for your patience.

Best regards,

Leonardo Afonso.

Noam Chomsky:

Thanks for the update, partially familiar to me but not entirely. It's unfortunate, to say the least. There might well be US interference. It would hardly be unusual. But I suspect the primary reason is what you suggest. It's a worldwide phenomenon, in varying degrees, and Latin America has long been notorious for the rapacity and violence of the highly class-conscious traditional elites, who largely own the press -- though not everywhere. The one really independent and very successful daily I know of in the hemisphere is la Jornada, in Mexico.